Recap of Fall 2022 Courses
Thornton Wilder: Beyond Our Town, with John Dennis Anderson and John Shuman
Though best known for his Pulitzer-Prize winning plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder also wrote fiction, winning his first Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. This course surveys Wilder’s wide-ranging body of work in multiple genres with a focus on his epic novel The Eighth Day, which was awarded the National Book Award in 1968. Wilder said the novel, a murder mystery and philosophical tale, was “as though Little Women were being mulled over by Dostoevsky.”
The First Light: A brief look at the long history of the first inhabitants of the Cape, with Paul Savage
Cape Cod’s history is indelibly linked to Nov. 1620 when the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown. In Massachusetts, the Cape and Islands–and in numerous locations of North America--thousands of places are named for Native American peoples, cultures and nations. This is a journey back to the origins of human settlement in North America and the Cape. The class will include two classroom meetings and three field trips.
Sexuality and Gender: Staying Current in a Changing Landscape, with Toby Simon
Given the attacks on gender identity, women’s reproductive rights, sexual expression and sex education curricula, this timely class will address the current political landscape and its impact on sexual expression and sex education curricula. It will also examine how frameworks of gender and sexuality have shifted dramatically in recent years from discrete categories to omnipresent discussions in our news cycle, living rooms and community “third spaces." In recent years, both sexuality and gender identity have been conceptualized along a spectrum, although the notion of “spectrum” has also been challenged.
A Revolutionary look at Opera, with Christopher Ostrom
For many, opera plots feel like far-fetched relics from an earlier time, tied closely to a classist system and unapproachable to the masses. But strip away the gowns and finery and pull back the brocade curtain, and you just might be surprised by the deeply political themes that escaped the censor’s pen. We will explore pivotal moments in opera history, not through the music, but through the libretti and dramaturgy behind many of the form’s most enduring works, while uncovering the often subversive and satirical elements hiding within the score.
Humor and Horror in Works by Two Russian Masters, with Rhoda Flaxman
Most of us read Crime and Punishment a long time ago, most likely viewing it as a gripping murder mystery. To be sure, it is that, but there is so much more to this story of a murder and its consequences for Raskolnikov, a poor law student in 19C. St. Petersburg. Although it is part of the realist tradition of the novel, it can also be seen as a mixed genre combining both grotesquerie and humor! Where did Dostoyevsky learn this approach?
The Versatile George Gershwin, with Marc Strauss
George Gershwin (né Jacob Gershwine; 1898 – 1937) packed multiple skills and accomplishments into his brief thirty-eight years of life. Most famous for the songs he wrote with his older brother Ira (1896 – 1983), these appeared in classic Broadway shows such as Lady, Be Good! (1924), Funny Face (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), as well as in Hollywood films such as Shall We Dance (1937), The Goldwyn Follies (1938) and, posthumously, An American in Paris (1951). Gershwin also wrote classical and contemporary compositions as a secondary but no less influential genre with works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Concerto in F (1925), and An American in Paris (1928). A true polymath who could play piano with two hands better than most duos with four--he was also an accomplished painter--Gershwin forwarded the art of show, jazz, classical, and contemporary music in ways that continue to be popular and influential nearly ninety years after his death.
Contemporary Visual Artists of Cape Cod with Robert Rindler
This exciting lecture series is designed to introduce course participants to extraordinary visual artists and their work created among us on the Outer Cape. We will engage with each of them in person during a spirited, intelligent and illuminating presentation and dialogue.
This is a carefully chosen, and diverse roster of emerging, mid and later career transformational leaders in the arts. They are all deeply involved in their personal creative inquiry and continue to expand our perspectives on how art is being redefined within our current cultural, social and political environment.
We will hear from 10 local, exemplary art makers, from different media disciplines, who are now or have recently been exhibiting their work in local galleries and museums where we can see their art first hand before, during or after our time together.